I Just got a 4.1 mac pro ?

I just picked up a 4.1 mac pro from a local dealer its 2 cpu 266 with 8 gig of ram and a gt120 video card 400 dollars sweet deal. I'm wondering what other people have upgraded video card's ssd's faster cpu's what gives the best bang for the buck your input will be helpful
thanks dave

Before you upgrade the video card run the firmware update to turn it into a 5,1
This will save you hassle later on when/if you do decide to upgrade the processors.
Because it is a dual CPU 4,1 the only safe way is to use delidded processors.

To the OP: You can easily install lidded CPU's in your 4,1 if you upgrade the firmware to 5,1. You just need to tighten the heatsinks in quarter turns, installing one cpu at a time till all the RAM for that CPU shows up in OS X. Took me 30 minutes to install 2 lidded 2.93 cpu's. Good luck with your Mac Pro

Without knowing the specifics of what it is you want to do it's difficult to provide any recommendation. About the only one I can offer at this time is to install an SSD as they tend to reasonable increase in responsiveness for a wide range of tasks. Other than that we'd need to know more about what you use your computer for in order to offer any recommendations.

I bought a single cpu 4,1 earlier this year and use an eVGA 750ti video card with 2 GB of RAM. The nice thing about it is that it requires no extra power, just slot it in and away you go. I'm not sure what you'll use your Pro for, but for me it works great and not too expensive either.

As for CPUs, the x5670 2.93 mhz (6-core) seems very reasonable these days compared to the x5680 and x5690, about half the cost. My single cpu x5670 flies. And as you have a dual cpu tray Geekbench multi-core scores for dual x5670's are 25,000+ which isn't bad at all. If going for x5670's you'll save yourself a bit of money and put towards more storage etc.

Some of your luck rubbed off on me, just this evening picked up another 2009 4,1 but with 2 x 2.26 cpu and with 16 GB ram for a good price (not as good as you though!). Hoping to sell my other 4,1 6-core single cpu to a family member. Then CPU upgrade time!

Just follow everything everyone has said. And definitely read the 1st post of the 2 stickies...the CPU compatibility and the Nvidia thread. They both have lots of very useful information.

But definitely the the 1st thing you should do is the 4,1 -> 5,1 firmware update because it's 100% free. This way, whenever you want to add memory and/or update the processor, you can get the faster 1333 MHz RAM and sell the 1066 MHz that's inside it now.

But regarding the best bang for the buck, when you compare it to the current MacPro trashcan, everything is so cheap!

For upgrading the CPUs, you can do it yourself, or find a tray swap/upgrade service on eBay...which I think it still fairly reasonably priced. To get the highest upgrade, 12 cores @ 3.46 GHz, it's $945...which will have the roughly the same CPU compute power as the $10k maxed out current MacPro trashcan.

For video cards, you can't go wrong with MVC's flashed cards. I've been using his cards for 4 years now...a flashed GTX570 2.5 GB and currently a Titan-X. They are rock-solid. The best bang for the buck I think its the 980ti...but, the 1080 and 1070 were recently announced which are faster and cheaper...but they are not supported yet.

For SSDs, it gets a little tricky since the tower is SATA 2. You'll need a PCIe card adapter to take advent of the speed increase (or an raid card with internal lanes). One of the issue I have the MacPro tower in general is, it only has 4 PCIe slots, which fill up fast. This is where I would try to find a card that can pull double duty, like this card. In one card, you can mount 2 2.5" SSDs, make a RAID0 and get roughly 1100 MB read/write speeds, but the card also has 2 eSATA ports for a fast external hard drive connection.

I am now realizing all of what I am saying is overkill for the average user. But if you want to make a pro level machine, the options are totally there and customizable to whatever budget you have.

Thanks again everyone I plan to change the video card most likely GTX 680 R9 280 or a 7950 that i can flash myself Ill hold off on SSD the price is still dropping when I can get a 480 gig for less then 100 dollars Ill jump in. CPU swap no big hurry!

Some of your luck rubbed off on me, just this evening picked up another 2009 4,1 but with 2 x 2.26 cpu and with 16 GB ram for a good price (not as good as you though!). Hoping to sell my other 4,1 6-core single cpu to a family member. Then CPU upgrade time!

Thanks again everyone I plan to change the video card most likely GTX 680 R9 280 or a 7950 that i can flash myself Ill hold off on SSD the price is still dropping when I can get a 480 gig for less then 100 dollars Ill jump in. CPU swap no big hurry!

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That is very short-sighted. An SSD will do far more for both actual & especially perceived performance than a graphics card upgrade. Even if you just plug it into one of the SATA-2 ports the difference in performance is night & day compared to rotating disks. There is far more bang for buck to putting in an SSD than a faster graphics card or CPU speed bump.

Yeah thats true but with prices still dropping I can wait a month or so

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The price always dropping. If that's a factor, you can never buy at the "optimum" cost.

IMO, spend a little bit, get the smallest one that just fit your need is the best way to do it. Now you have an SSD to do the basic job, but can wait the bigger SSD price to drop (for more than a month).

Thanks again everyone I plan to change the video card most likely GTX 680 R9 280 or a 7950 that i can flash myself Ill hold off on SSD the price is still dropping when I can get a 480 gig for less then 100 dollars Ill jump in. CPU swap no big hurry!

--- Post Merged, Jun 17, 2016 ---

true but I think you got it for 300 right thats a steal

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Not quite, I got my single cpu for equivalent of about $300 earlier this year. My 2 cpu I got the other day was around equivalent of $550, which for uk I think is pretty good.

Well I was at the hamfest today picked up a evga gtx680( it was a great price) put it in my 06 cables already there it didn't boot OS X. first I thought bricked card but it worked in windows it has a strange firmware in it. I took a cheap ati 6450 from a older pc I was planning to make a DVR out of it works in OS X but not windows. so I need to find a way to flash this puppy it is one of the cards that can be flashed any ideas? Ill try a free dos cd I have and see if that boots

Well I was at the hamfest today picked up a evga gtx680( it was a great price) put it in my 06 cables already there it didn't boot OS X. first I thought bricked card but it worked in windows it has a strange firmware in it. I took a cheap ati 6450 from a older pc I was planning to make a DVR out of it works in OS X but not windows. so I need to find a way to flash this puppy it is one of the cards that can be flashed any ideas? Ill try a free dos cd I have and see if that boots

That's neat. I just assumed that all 650's needed the extra power. If I'd known about this one, I may have bought one for the Hackintosh. None of that nv_disable boot flag nonsense to bother with when updating the OS like with the 750.

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